Colorlines Forum

Readers Talk Back To Our Series On Race

June 21, 1998

AFTER THE INCIDENT

Ten years have passed. Former University of Connecticut President John Casteen exposed a damning truth (inadvertently?) to David Morse [``After The Incident,'' May 17].

Casteen revealed that his and the UConn board's decision to wear the ``Please Reduce Racism at UConn'' button at the 1988 graduation was ``their important demonstration of support'' for the eight racially victimized students in the Dec. 3, 1987, incident.

One fundamental change, not yet attended to, would be an immediate strengthening of the so-called new ``stiff penalties'' (Casteen's words) in his address to the University Senate on May 8, 1989. These double-speak penalties changed nothing. They are still in force. Decipher for yourself the tricky language (unfortunately not contained in Morse's updated piece): ``This ineligibility (for discriminatory harassment) shall apply for the duration of the semester in which the offense occurred and for the semester immediately next following.''

On Dec. 3, 1997, I returned to UConn to speak at the 10th anniversary of ``The Incident'' carrying a pledge I wanted the new president to make. I wanted one last chance to have UConn right this festering wrong.

Standing before him, I asked President Philip Austin to pledge:

``I will do all I can to ensure that no convicted racist/sexist harasser shall play big-time UConn football. Period.''

Austin, a big-time UConn football advocate replied, ``That pledge is one that I embrace entirely and enthusiastically, and without equivocation.''

I had returned to UConn with ``shame, anger, rage, bitterness, contempt, sorrow.'' Now I have some hope.

Paul Bock

Seattle, Wash.

The writer is a University of Connecticut professor emeritus of hydrology and water resources.

CARBON COPIES

Justice for all didn't happen for me either and I'm a middle-aged, middle-class white woman living in a small town of about 8,500. And being white didn't help when I slid my car into a snowbank one winter. I also had three small children in the back seat.

I'm sorry that I was too busy to notice the quantity of melanin in the people who drove by, but my struggle for 30 minutes, that finally and successfully ended in the extrication of my car was uppermost in my mind, not skin color. As Cindy Brown Austin stated, ``I was a woman, a human, who desperately needed another human to help me'' (``Carbon Copies,'' May 31). Certainly, there were no points for my whiteness!

In this world of such negativity and lack of naivete, I'd like to read about a positive event -- something good must be happening somewhere. Let's try to build on that piece of the puzzle.